Abstract
In the preface to In the Midst of Things: The Social Life of Objects in Public Spaces of New York City, Mike Owen Benediktsson describes writing the concluding chapter in the early months of the 2020 pandemic. It was no doubt stressful to try to finish a book about public spaces, taking readers into pre-pandemic New York’s overcrowded subways and vibrant plazas, at a time when these very spaces were being emptied of their social life, leading to speculation about widespread and long-term enochlophobia. Nonetheless, while admitting that “the New York City that appears in this book is a place that existed prior to these changes,” Benediktsson predicts that the book’s central theme—the way material objects “make trouble” in public spaces—“will continue to be relevant, even if the book itself describes a city that no longer exists” (pp. xi–xii). With the benefit of some additional hindsight, I am happy to report that Benediktsson’s prediction is not only correct, but also that his book is a vital contribution to the rich tradition of the sociology of public spaces, which extends back to the work of fellow New Yorkers like William H. Whyte and Jane Jacobs (both of whom are cited frequently in the book).
In the Midst of Things is a book about “public objects”: items found in public spaces and that ostensibly belong to everyone. It examines a variety of these objects, from benches to subway doors to park lawns. Look more closely, Benediktsson argues, and we can see how objects have been intentionally “programmed” to have material “affordances” that constrain how public life plays out and who belongs in public space. Usually there is a close correspondence between the programmed affordances of objects and the structure of social life, allowing objects to fade from human consciousness. However, Benediktsson is more interested in the opposite phenomenon: when objects “make trouble” for social actors and, in doing so, burst into public awareness. He identifies three distinct moments when this is most likely to occur: when new objects make an appearance in public space, when existing objects fall out of sync and disrupt social life, and when familiar public objects disappear. These moments form the basic framework of the book. Each chapter presents a case study of a relatively mundane object that becomes troublesome by appearing, disrupting, or disappearing.
The major conceptual contribution of In the Midst of Things is in bringing the ethnographic tradition of studying public spaces into dialogue with the “new materialist” perspectives of cultural sociologists, such as Terence McDonnell, who have developed theories for understanding the interrelationship between the physical qualities of objects, the symbolic meanings they transmit, and their incorporation into social practices. However, readers looking for the sustained development of an explicit “theory of public objects” that unfolds across the chapters will not find it here. This is not Benediktsson’s goal. The main theoretical discussion occurs in the first chapter, which lays out the basic framework for understanding how public objects “make trouble” and introduces a collection of terms (“public objects,” “programming,” “affordances,” etc.). These terms serve as a conceptual toolkit that is utilized in the rest of the book, but each chapter is primarily dedicated to making sense of a particularly troublesome object in its own right.
An implication of this approach is that each chapter can be read independently, which makes this book useful material for course instructors looking for interesting case studies that are 20 to 30 pages long. In addition to contributing to the theoretical framework outlined in the book’s introduction, most chapters also speak to a distinct subfield within urban studies. For example, chapter one covers the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park, a case of postindustrial waterfront development involving warring community groups, public-private partnerships, and a celebrity architect. Chapter Five, which examines the disappearance of New York’s once-ubiquitous newsstands, addresses the topic of social control and Jane Jacobs’s concept of “eyes on the street.” Other chapters are more idiosyncratic, though no less interesting, like Chapter Four’s discussion of subway doors, which must be designed to be strong enough to dissuade people from prying them open while not so strong that they maim riders.
Benediktsson also develops new concepts when appropriate to help theorize his cases. For example, he uses the term “normative infrastructure” in Chapter Four’s discussion of subway doors to describe the combination of physical processes (the pressure of the doors themselves) and social norms (the moral pressure passengers place on each other) that keep the system operating smoothly and that can break down due to crowding and social uncertainty. Likewise, Chapter Five introduces the idea of “friction,” referring to the inefficiencies of newsstands as a means of accessing information that causes people to have to stop and linger on street corners, flipping through magazines and chatting with vendors and other customers. However, he also points out that the newsstand’s friction means that it struggles to compete with the smartphone as a source of information.
Another advantage of maintaining a lighter theoretical touch is that Bendiktsson allows his ethnographic observations and writing to shine. Given that this book concerns the (sometimes quite subtle) effects of the built environment on human actors, his writing does an excellent job of putting the reader “in the midst of things,” allowing them to feel what it is like to interact with these spaces in a very material sense. To illustrate, consider this passage from Chapter Three, in which Bendiktsson describes navigating an exurban arterial road on foot: Pedestrians were denied the areas along the sides of the road by natural or manmade obstructions. In these areas, they occupied the asphalt shoulders of the highway, walking among pieces of shredded rubber and pieces of broken safety glass and plastic taillight, remnants of the quotidian violence that accompanies high-speed automobile traffic. A field visit . . . in the early twilight of the winter afternoon revealed a team of four hotel cleaners in uniforms, two of them apparently elderly women, climbing a cement barrier and hurrying across four windswept lanes of high-speed traffic to move from one place of part-time employment, a budget motel, to another, an auto dealership . . . . The built space of these roadways greets pedestrians with near complete inflexibility, forcing users to sacrifice ease of movement or physical safety, or both. (p. 105)
This passage conveys the daily humiliation and outright danger faced by low-income service workers forced to traverse a landscape built for personal automobiles they cannot afford to own. The larger theoretical point is also clear. In their own silent way, the multitude of public objects that surround us on a daily basis are actually saying a lot about who belongs to “the public.”
Overall, this book was a pleasure to read and its insightful, yet accessible, writing will appeal to many different audiences, including professional sociologists who study cities or material culture, undergraduate and graduate students, and nonspecialists who happen to be interested in reading about cities and urbanism.